


If I Ever Tell You I'm All Right (I'm Not)

by Saucery



Series: Space Husbands [5]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Bar Room Brawl, Drama, First Meetings, Flirting, Holding Hands, M/M, Promiscuity, Slut vs. Prude, Snippets, Telepathy, Vulcan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse of an alternate universe in which Jim is a former hooker turned minor criminal, and Spock is a runaway Vulcan prince, who, after finding out (to his shock) that he's half-Human, decides to journey to Earth and find out about the other half of his heritage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Ever Tell You I'm All Right (I'm Not)

* * *

 

It's Jim's night off and he's goddamn well going to get laid or at least set his blinkers on some eye-candy, which is why he heads over to Eufers (Tellarian for 'Hooters') and pushes in past the eight-foot, fanged, furry bouncer that knows him by face - or ass. Jim has a fine ass, and he's willing to bet that many people around here have it memorized, as it deserves to be.

The place is crowded, as usual, and milling with life-forms of disrepute, also as usual. Gaila, the green-skinned stripper that has mastered the art of the lap-dance by practicing said art over the laps of every sentient species (including the lapless, gaseous ones) winks at him as he makes for the bar. He winks back. Time was, she and Jim used to work the streets together, before Jim got fixed up in his new gig with Boss Falcone, and, well. It's good to see her doing all right. More than all right. Is that a hundred he just saw some poor bastard tuck into her garter?

Gaila smirks, and slides her eyes towards the bar, in the way that means:  _Check it out, hottie at nine o'clock_. Sweet girl. Always ready to help Jim find the companionship he needs, if she can't offer it herself.

And damn if there isn't a hottie at nine o' clock. Real prim and proper, dressed like a posh little Vulcan from the Upper Ring, and the pointed ears are a nice touch, real authentic. Role-play, huh? Jim can do that. Jim can do plenty.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing in an ugly place like this?" he asks, as he slides onto the neighboring barstool, and the hottie just flicks him a look, all smooth and indifferent. It reminds Jim so powerfully of Uhura that he realizes that hell, yes, he does have a type, and apparently it's 'gorgeous and unapproachable'. And maybe 'potentially lethal', given the threatening glint of those eyes. Hot damn.

The faux-Vulcan looks down into his glass, like Jim isn't there, so Jim has to grin and lean up against him a little, earning another disgruntled glance.

"Yo, Boxy. Get this babe here a drink, would you? On me."

Boxy's a Gormac, built like a truck on steroids, but he's a real sweetheart. He gives Jim what might be called a wink on a creature with actual eyelids, and slides a Saurian Red towards the faux-Vulcan.

Who just… stares at it. "I do not drink alcohol," he says, eventually, and while Jim's sitting there entranced by one of the most beautiful and beautifully masculine voices he's ever heard, Angel From On High seems to notice that he's being swooned over, and looks away.

"Yeah?" Jim tries to peek into the guy's opaque, viroplastic glass. "What're you drinking, then?"

"Brgnrah grull," rumbles Boxy, which means, 'green tea'.

"Seriously? _Tea?_ " Jim's heard of verisimilitude, but this is on a whole new level. "You're not really a Vulcan, are you?"

Sadly, before before it's possible for Jim to get a tasty, role-appropriate answer that'll further fan his swiftly-multiplying fantasies (he's already got one involving asphyxiation and those strong, noble hands), the faux-Vulcan gets interrupted by a heavy paw landing on his shoulder.

"Pree-tty boy," says - no, drools - a face that seems to be little more than one giant jaw. "How mu-uch you?"

"Hey," interrupts Jim, needled, "he's not for sale." Even though he might be; with looks like that, hell, he probably is. For more than Jim will ever be able to afford. For more than _anyone_ should ever be able to afford.

He… he shouldn't be for sale, at all.

For a moment, the faux-Vulcan seems frozen - between Jim's hand on his elbow (when did it get there?) and Jaw-man's paw on his shoulder - but then he just unfolds, or maybe flows, like some dark, perfect fluid or an alien wine, and then, before Jim can draw breath, Jaw's just been thrown across the room like a rag-doll, and everyone's gaping at the resulting carnage - a tipped-over table and a broken chair, and, well, the perpetrator, black-haired and black-eyed, calm as a yeti post-rampage.

It begins to dawn on Jim that maybe, just maybe, he got the 'faux' part of that description wrong.

Not the yeti part.

Or the calm part.

 _Or_ the post-rampage part.

Just -

"Uh," says Jim, as the - the Vulcan, Jesus, a _real_ Vulcan, because that strength obviously wasn't Human - turns to face him.

"Jim," he says, and Jim starts, because - he hadn't told this guy his name, had he? Oh, wait. Vulcan. Touch-telepath. Crap. So he knows about the asphyxiation fantasies. And the bondage fantasies. And the - "You will suffice."

Suffice for what? Hot sex? Because Jim's totally down with that. Except that a) Vulcans don't even have sex unless it's during their you-know-what that no one can talk about without getting severely reprimanded and, like, brain-bleached, and b) Jim's fairly sure his brain won't survive a bleaching. His mouth might, but then, his mouth's survived pretty much everything, up to and including Nevarian penises. With three heads.

"You will serve as my guide."

Jim's ready retort of, _I don't service anybody, buddy - not anymore, anyway_ , is headed off by a more pressing question. "What're you doing here?" he blurts, because Vulcans are the fucking high lords of the universe and the rulers of this goddamn planet, and they shouldn't be down here, in the dumps, slumming it with the rest of 'em.

The Vulcan just breathes, like the question was unexpected, or maybe insubordinate, or maybe like he never knew question-marks existed. "Learning," he says, finally. Shortly.

"Learning what?"

"Humanity."

Huh _._ The facts add up - lone Vulcan out on the town, dressed to the nines but with no back-up, no security and no followers, no ceremonial veil-holders or worshipers or safe-keepers.

What Jim has here is a runaway. Some Vulcan lordling with authority issues, not that Vulcans are even supposed to have authority issues, or, like, issues, period, but there's something in the expressionless set of that jaw that manages to be kind of maybe almost mutinous, and Jim _gets_ that mutiny, he recognizes it. It's the same goddamn expression he used to see in the mirror, all those years ago, before he ran away from his pimp of a stepfather and started keeping the money from selling his ass.

It's - it's the expression he still sees, sometimes, in cracked rearview mirrors and reflected back at him in the eyes of the people he… refuses to put down.

Not even on the boss's orders.

Not on _anyone's_ orders.

And, yeah, he knows that it's going to get him killed - but it's a charmed life while it lasts, right? Being one of the shiniest little dung-beetles on top of the dung-heap? Getting the best shit?

Damn right.

Getting laid's always made up for most of it. Sometimes, even the worst of it.

But not -

Not.

"Listen, I don't know what you know about me," Jim says, aware that everyone in the place is gaping at them, "or what you, like, got from my head, but you know I don't come cheap, right?" Heh. _Come_ cheap.

The Vulcan studies him. "Indeed." And then, after a beat of silence: "You… should not be for sale, either."

Jim... stares.

And stares.

"Right," says Jim, and the Vulcan nods.

"I am Spock," he says, and pauses, like he's trying to figure out how to make a command sound like a request. "You will… escort me?"

"Oh, I'll escort the hell outta you, baby. Don't you worry 'bout that. Speaking of, people are after you, right?"

"They are."

"Great. Because they're after me, too." Or they will be, anyway, once Falcone's people figure out that he's run off. Again. And, this time, with a potentially pricey bit of merchandise - heck, they might even think he's kidnapped a Vulcan and plans to keep the proceeds to himself. "Just, don't go around throwing people and telling everyone your name, okay? Bad fugitive protocol. Gotta keep it low."

"Low," repeats Spock, slowly, like he's tasting the word in his mouth.

Damn. That mouth - no, no. Concentrate. "Yeah. So. Before Jaw-man here wakes up and everyone else stops being terrified that there's, like, a freaking Vulcan in their midst, maybe we should leave? And also, you're paying. For everything. Hotels, motels, food, se - uh, booze."

"I do not drink alcohol."

"Yeah, I got that part." Jim wipes his palms on his jeans, leers, and grabs Spock's hand.

Spock looks down at Jim's fingers, wrapped around his own. And looks up at Jim's eyes. "Jim," he begins, and even though Jim isn't actually telepathic, he knows what Spock's saying, anyway.

"Nope," he replies, cheerfully. "I will absolutely touch you whenever I want to. Which is a bonus for _you_ , since you get to read my mind and see that I'm not, like, running away with your funds - "

"You would never do so."

Jim blinks. "Um."

Spock is still standing there, peaceful as a lamb - a really determined, powerful, potentially lethal lamb. That apparently thinks it knows Jim better than he knows himself.

Because of, what, a couple minutes of thought-reading?

"Yes," says Spock.

Yeah. Okay. Fine. Jim can - Jim can totally deal. He _is_ dealing. He's pulling Spock out the door, listening for the inevitable burst of noise as people of at least eight different species start talking in ten different languages, some probably calls to the media, if not to the authorities, since, well, Eufers. Not exactly a respectable establishment.

"How long will law enforcement take to reach this facility?"

Facility? "Longer than it'll take for us to get far, far away. This isn't known as the Pit for nothing, you know."

"It is the last habitable sector on the planet."

"Yep. Takes a while for most law-abiding folks to remember it even exists. Takes about five times as long for the cops to find anything down here. Even if it _isn't_ trying to get away."

"But we are."

Jim grins. "Oh, yeah. I know some places; I've got a couple IDs, some facial holograms. We just need to get you one - or two - or thirteen. And then, we can spend as long as you want, down here. Are you planning to stay? Like, always?"

"I… do not know." Spock hasn't, actually, pulled his hand away from Jim's. Jim is starting to get the feeling that this is kind of a big deal - unless Vulcans just imprint on the first viable person that touches them, like newborn ducklings, or something. "Are you representative of most Humans?"

"Me? Hell, no." They're already at Jim's bike, which isn't stolen only because Jim's jazzed it up with maybe the most intimidating sentient alarm system outside of the Vulcan Royal Museum.

"I see."

It's only after they've gotten on the bike and Jim's had to tell Spock - four times - that no, he does not have helmets, and yes, that _is_ illogical, with a fifty point nine percentage increase in the probability of fatalities - that Jim realizes something. "Wait. Other Humans not being like me… is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"Hm," says Spock, like that's an answer, and hangs on when Jim revs up the bike.

There's the sound of a police alarm in the distance, but Spock and Jim are already gone.

 

* * *

**fin.**

(By virtue of being a snippet, this will not be continued.)


End file.
